Sarah Hedlund, violin

Originally from the West Michigan area, violinist Sarah Hedlund holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Western Michigan University, where she studied with Renata Artman Knific as a violin major. For 20 years, she was an active performer and educator based in Kalamazoo, holding several regional orchestra positions including principal second violin for the Southwest Michigan Symphony Orchestra, section violin for both the Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra and the West Michigan Symphony Orchestra, and concertmaster for the Kalamazoo Philharmonia. Sarah maintained a large studio of violin and viola students at the Crescendo Academy of Music for ten years, as well as remaining active as a chamber musician. She has performed in Southwest Michigan Symphony Orchestra’s Around the Town chamber music series with both the Bach to Bacharach String Trio and the Crescendo Piano Trio; she has also been a member of the Vireo String Quartet as a violist, which was featured for two years at Festival South in Hattiesburg, MS and whose members recorded Stephen Holochwost’s Trio for Violin, Viola, and Cello, Op. 2bon Albany Records in 2012. Since relocating to Maryland three years ago, Sarah has built a violin studio at the International School of Music in Bethesda; several of her students have been featured in the school-sponsored honors recitals at Carnegie Hall in New York and the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. She is currently performing as concertmaster for the Occasional Symphony in Baltimore.